Sunday July 17th, 2011

So yesterday they buried Otto von Hapsburg in Vienna. Well, part of him. Like Joe Hill, the last heir of the Austro-Hungarian empire is being buried "everywhere". His heart is being sent off to a monastery in some other part of the former empire, but most of him was interred yesterday in the Imperial Crypt in downtown Wien.

On Friday, as I read the signs in the U-Bahn announcing various system shutdowns for the funeral I realized that this was going to be a (somewhat) Big Deal. So I asked an Austrian native with whom I work with whether the shops would be shut. She was pretty confident that this wouldn't be the case.

She did think there could be large crowds though - depending on the weather. "Austrians..." she explained "..are fair-weather monarchists."

So Saturday dawned clear and hot - and the crowds were pretty big.

As a fairly anti-monarchist type myself I was in two minds whether to go and rubberneck at what was clearly going to be an interesting spectacle. In the end, I bought an ice-cream cornet at Zanoni & Zanoni's and wandered over to Stephansplatz to the sound of tolling bells, just as the requiem mass for Otto was "letting out".

I ended up walking alongside the cortege for a couple of hours (did I mention it was a gorgeous afternoon?) and reflecting on what it all meant.

At one point I tried to soak in what it must have felt like 100 years ago to watch the funeral of Emperor Franz-Josef I, or the imperial couple who were killed at Sarajevo (thereby sparking the First World War apparently, though I've never quite nailed down the causality on that one).

I realized though that the spectacle I was witnessing was nothing like those of a century or so ago. Those were all about conveying power. Yesterday was Ruritanian kitsch. Apart from a few minor European princes, counts and other parasites, the parade was mainly composed of people in what was quite obviously fancy dress. Carrying swords, muskets, halbards and a multiplicity of flags (all with mutant two-headed eagles on them) these bewhiskered old gents marched along enjoying the sunshine, but the sense of awe which must have been conveyed to the watching hoi-polloi of a century ago was largely absent.

Anyhow, here are some photographs of the events of the day....

If you look closely, more or less dead centre (so to speak) of this picture is the actual coffin of poor old Otto v. It's draped in a black and yellow flag. You can just see it under the fold of that big yellow and black flag being carried by the guy in red with the ostrich feathers. Can't see it? That's 'cos you're looking at the guy in the blue checked shirt on the right of the picture, aren't you? Why is he giving me the stink-eye? I've no idea....

This is a picture I took earlier in the day. I was on my way back from swimming when I first began to notice that there were more men than usual wearing cutlasses in Starbucks. Back out on the street it was apparent that something was afoot...

I took this picture just by my apartment. The guy bringing up the rear had just posed for a picture with two young American tourists. They took turns photographing each other with him. They were dressed for hot weather, and giggled a lot as they pressed up against him so as to fit within the confines of the viewfinder. He seemed very happy.

This is a view of the procession as it passed through Heldenplatz. The balcony in the middle of the picture is the one from which Hitler made his speech to a couple of hundred thousand Viennese after the Anschluss in March 1938.

The route was lined with giant TV screen so we could keep an eye on the action, which it's difficult to do if you're a part of it (albeit in an immeasurably minor way).

I've no idea why I took this picture. Maybe I snapped just a moment too late to catch a fast-moving halbardier who'd disappeared around that corner. Or maybe I was trying to make some kind of point. If I was, I can't remember what it was. Anyone got any suggestions?

This was one of the best bits of the procession, as it processed through the Hofburg palace.

After Heldenplatz, the cortege turned left onto the Ring. As that's tree lined, it was a little cooler there, and the light was a little less brutal...the costumes didn't get any less kitschy though.

There were costumes from every part of the empire that Otto v. didn't rule at the time of his death. These blue ones were my particular favourite. I think the guys are hussars. Would that be right? Hussars?

Anyway, that's all. 

Today the Austrian papers have seized on the funeral as marking some kind of point of historical significance in Austrian history. One column in the Kurier takes the occasion as an opportunity to bemoan the lack of a "big idea" to form the basis of the future of the Republic. Maybe, though, if things are going as well as they appear to be in Austria (at least to my eyes) - high standard of living, little crime, a generally polite and prosperous people - a big idea is the last thing you need. Haven't big ideas historically ended in tears (see my earlier point re: balcony in Heldenplatz...)?

Early June

 In early June Karen came to visit. I had to work during the week, and at weekends while we were about I didn't often take out the camera. But here are a few pictures that I did take....

Tuesday, March 8th 2011

Tomorrow my furniture arrives from Canada, and so - of course - today I had to figure out where to put it. The basement seems like the obvious choice, right? So this morning I explored the basement of my building, and...what a creepfest...

This is my locker (#14), with the door swung invitingly open. In a horror film it would have slammed shut to and jammed when I stepped inside, imprisoning me two floors beneath the streets of Vienna. Two years from now, when the standing order to pay my rent finally expired, the new tenant would have found my cobwebbed remains slumped dejectedly in a corner (why do skeletons always have such bad posture?). 

The only unanswered question would be whether or not I was dead - or just too near death to move - when the first of the rats attacked.

Anyway, this is no horror film. In real life I didn't step inside. Fuck that.

But at least the bright, fresh wood mitigates the creepiness of the room. That and the electric light.

But it gets creepier.....

This is the view from a floor further down. Don't ask why I went down there. I just did. Was I tempted to climb those steps and investigate the strange light that appears to be emanating from just around the corner at the top of the stairs?

Not really.

And it gets creepier....

By now I'd figured out the settings on my camera, so this frame is lit as if the steps leading down to the fourth level of the basement had quite a wholesome - even inviting - feel about them. Believe me, in reality, in the dank and must, and by the dim light from a single bulb they weren't the least inviting. If nobody could hear you yelling for help from two floors below Vienna, you'd be SOL if you fell and broke your leg four floors underground. Plus the Viennese are busy people. Even if they could hear your screams they might well just continue about their business.

But in all likelihood no living thing would hear you scream down there.

Except the rats. Your screams would bring the rats.....

Sunday, February 20th 2011

On the way back from the grocers yesterday I spotted another plaque. In Vienna, a building without some kind of plaque is the exception rather than the rule. But some plaques are more interesting than others....

Plus this one's pretty easy to translate....

I also passed through this little...square..? The building on the right contains the Archives of the University of Vienna. Just the other side of this is the Dominikaner Church. A couple of weeks ago I was looking around the Kunsthistorisches Museum and came across a painting of this church done by Canaletto (or was it really by Bellotto?)

I think the building below may have been a Viennese version of the "hospitals" (in the old sense of "charitable institutions for the housing and maintenance of the needy, infirm or aged") you find in England

The Canadian embassy isn't in digs I'd describe as lavish.

Vienna is (still) a pretty radical place. Graffiti like this is pretty common.

But when the revolution comes, I expect cats to be fighting with the forces of reaction....

Sunday, February 6th 2011

I spent most of this afternoon walking. Here are some pictures I snapped as I walked...

This is the narrow street that leads to Passauerplatz, and the church of Maria am Gestade...

..and a view looking up as you walk down the street...

As you round the church, there's a small apartment building, with a plaque set in the sidewalk just to the right of the door as you face it...

Vienna's full of unexpected rises as adjoining streets somehow manage to get out of vertical alignment, and you find yourself having to go down a steep flight of steps in order to get to the next street over. Do that from Passauerplatz, and you end up in a little square where I took this photograph...

I don't know what's going on here, but it doesn't look good for the guy in the middle. I have a sense that this piece of statuary is illustrating some well know historical (or mythic) event - but I don't know what it is, and I couldn't spot any kind of plaque to give me a clue. It's hard by the Polish Centre - could that be relevant...?

Here are some more snaps I took as I wandered. For some reason I was focused on plaques today (though not exclusively); there are a lot of those in Vienna....some classical....

...and some more urgent and emphatic..

This city is very proud of its musical heritage. Luckily the composers who lived here seemed to move about a bit, so no building need go without a plaque of some kind. This lucky building claims to have scored Beethoven, though when you look closer it's only built on the site of the building that Ludwig v. lived in....still, the frieze is striking....

If it's not plaques, it's statuary in this town. As somebody once said "Vienna's got all the marble in the world..." (though she said it better than that)...here's a typical example...

There's a marker below on this building close to Passauerplatz. 

My German's not up to a full translation, but I think the gist is that at least one person didn't think that deporting and murdering his neighbours was such a great idea, and tried to do something about it...

This is a view across the street to one of the entrances to a famous Viennese restaurant "Figlmuller"...specialty of the house apparently is veal cutlet, so I won't be going there any time soon (though I hear they can whip up a tasty veggie alternative on request...)

Here's a closer view....